1. Field
The present invention relates to a method, medium, and apparatus for docking a mobile robot, and more particularly, to a method, medium, and apparatus for updating or adding a candidate estimated pose of a signal transmitting unit whenever detecting a docking signal while a mobile robot moves and attempting to dock the mobile robot by using a plurality of candidate estimated poses in order of accuracy.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the technological development, various forms of robots, in particular, mobile robots, have recently been introduced. Mobile robots, such as cleaning robots and security robots, carry out tasks in place of human beings while autonomously traveling at home.
A mobile robot, which travels autonomously, includes a battery. Therefore, when the voltage of the battery is low, the mobile robot returns to a charging station and charges the battery.
If the mobile robot is aware of the position of the charging station on the entire map, it can return to the position and charge its battery. However, the position of the charging station may be changed by a user, and the mobile robot may not be aware of the initial position of the charging station. To address this problem, the charging station transmits a docking signal, and the mobile robot detects the docking signal and attempts to return to the charging station.
However, if the mobile robot cannot detect the docking signal when attempting to return to the charging station, it wanders randomly or makes a wall-following motion until detecting the docking signal. That is, the mobile robot has to make additional motions.
In addition, when the mobile robot detects a docking signal reflected by the wall or the floor, it may wrongly recognize the position of the charging station and attempt to return to a wrong position.